Hello, friends! Wow, what a month! March was packed and refreshing at the same time. A conference, a big trip, a book completed, and there are peach buds on my tree, y’all. It survived the snow! I am so grateful for all that happened in March. Here’s a recap and my PowerSheets goals for April.

I love when Gina comes to photograph us. She gets Grace to laugh every time!

I look like such a weirdo here, but all this joy is REAL. This was my 51st time leading the MTH Conference and it couldn’t have been better. I love you, friends! Photo by Amy Nicole.

– Celebrate our 11 year wedding anniversary well. The traditional gift is steel (these materials always make me giggle!), so I’m considering either these collar stays stamped with Ari’s favorite Bible verses or getting us family bikes. Well, we did celebrate, but I did not get Ari a gift yet. We wanted to see what it was like to rent bikes on our vacation and test out a bike trailer for the kids. It was great! I’m in research mode now to find the best prices and options to somehow get three kiddos to ride along with me.

We loved our time in Watercolor last week. I even met a PowerSheets user on the plane which was so fun!

– Finish 2016 taxes.Yes. We had a funny thing happen while we were working on them. We’ve used TurboTax for the last ten years for our personal taxes. Ari got to the final screen and the refund amount said $6,394,128.00! We laughed and Ari fixed the error, but it was a good and needed laugh in the middle of what can sometimes be a stressful experience.– Hire our new team member/s!This is in progress and we expect to hire two new team members this month. Please pray alongside me that we make wise and thorough decisions. We’ve had so many wonderful applicants.– Blog posts:
1. Release my book cover and film. YES! Hooray! Read all about it here.
2. Build and blog my “Cultivated Calendar.” This one is getting moved to April! But, I did share my curly hair story here.
3. Parts two and three of my Gardening 101 series. YES! Double hooray! There are over 700 comments on the series – WOW. Here’s the final Gardening 101 post. The giveaway winner is Sandra. Congrats, Sandra! – Celebrate Sarah’s birthday. She turned one on February 26th, but with the sickness in our house, we moved the celebration to this coming weekend. Yes! Here’s the recap of her celebration. – Celebrate Purim.Yes. Hamentaschen and the book of Esther were enjoyed by all!

I love this of Josh and me that Gina took! My little buddy.

– Begin afternoon Word refresh times: Amen Paper Company Lent study + memorize good words for goal number 3 by putting the verses on index cards this month. I hope to do this for a few minutes each afternoon to close my work day. This did not happen, once again. I did make progress on the scripture memorization thanks to a blog reader who suggested I add verses to my to-do app on my phone. But, the additional Bible studies and devotionals had to get nixed. I commited to too much. I already have my morning Bible reading time (which is going well) but I would be grateful for another time before I take over watching the kiddos at night and Ari comes home. Working on this.

– Take the next steps in garden planning, and decide on garden structures (we need a bench) and a final garden plan. I’m in a bit of a happy bind here — my winter garden still looks great! So, I have no motivation to remove anything right now to plant new things. These pansies and violas won’t last in the strong heat of summer, but they are so happy right now. I may have to move some of them to make room for my seedlings and then direct sow the rest come early summer. I haven’t decided yet. The other option is to make a whole new garden in the back of our house. This may happen!

– Make changes now to switch to my homeschool work schedule starting in the early summer. I haven’t started on this, but I have come to realize it’s just not the right time yet. – Spring cleaning!YES! I cleared things out, including the ladies’ office. I shared a before shot in Instagram a couple weeks ago. After photo coming soon. And huge thanks to our amazing caregiver and friend Sarah for helping out in the office and for doing all sorts of things to bless all of us while I was away last week!

I love this girl.

March weekly goals:
– Sabbath – lifegiving weekends. Yes.
– Meaningful connection with Ari. Yes. Our two date nights on vacation were deeply refreshing.
– Pray through my prayer journal.I left it at home during our vacation, and I missed it. I’m excited to fill it out for April tonight.

March daily goals:
– Read my chronological Bible reading plan. Yes! I’m almost to day 100. The first part of Judges was not my favorite and I had a hard time paying attention, but I prayed for God to give me focus and He has. I’m in the middle of Samson’s story right now, which is hard not to pay attention to!
– #RunLiftPraiseYes. At-home workouts continue and the weather is alllllmost at the point where I can get out in the mornings to walk (or bike soon!) with the kids.
– Eat more raw foods. Yes.
– Be active in my work day. Yes, and it’s a collective goal in our office to be more active this month, especially with so much computer work to do.

— Celebrate Southern Weddings’ birthday. I launched the first issue of Southern Weddings on April 1st nine years ago! As part of my yearly goal to live a year of radical gratitude and praise, I’m celebrating His faithfulness this week in all that has happened in those nine years. Celebrate along with us here.– Lay a firm foundation for the budget. Lots to say here, but I have 10 minutes to finish this post before I have two babies in my arms for the afternoon. In sum, I’m working on creating a new family budget using EveryDollar. I feel resolved here and excited.– Celebrate Passover (my favorite holiday!). We are hosting our annual (except last year because we had a newborn) Passover dinner at church next week. Ari does such a great job leading this from a messianic Jewish perspective. It always builds my faith.– Create a new frequent date night schedule. We realized on our trip that we need to prioritize this in our budget and our schedules. As a benefit of working on the Southern Weddings/Cultivate team, we pay for monthly date nights for each team member. In the seasons that Ari and I have been in with kiddos, we haven’t been able to do them ourselves on a regular basis. But, I finally finished nursing last month (hooray!) so we can more easily make this happen now. My first step is finding and interviewing trusted babysitters. I’ve already started this process.– Prayerfully hire our new team members.– Plant our garden! As mentioned above, I’m not exactly sure how to do this yet, but I’ll keep you posted here.– Record the audiobook for Cultivate and prepare well for the launch ahead.– Prayerful spring product launch (the new Write the Word collection is SO BEAUTIFUL! I can’t wait to show you next week!) and team retreat prep.– Blog posts: Cultivated Calendar, Spring product release, Cultivating Faith, and many more.– Host a meaningful Cultivating Faith webinar next week with Shanna Noel (register here!)– Take my workouts to the next level. We got so much exercise on our trip last week from biking everywhere, and I really benefitted from it. Time to up my workouts this month in intensity!– Lord willing, start leading our family group again. Our family group is splitting into three to have more intimate groups, and we’re going to be leading a group on Saturday mornings so we can both be there. For the last few months, I’ve had to stay home with sleeping kiddos while Ari goes by himself. Not ideal, but we knew this would just be for a season. I used those nights to write in my prayer journal, but I have been craving fellowship!– Pray impossible prayers and be open to new possibilities. This kept coming to me over and over on our vacation. Being away from our normal environment was so good to reset my brain and help me think outside of our normal routines and rhythms. I felt the Lord telling me to pray more boldly and so I have started that. One of those prayers was answered on Monday night and it was a BIG one! The story is miraculous and I can’t share all the details, but I’ll tell you that we are now in contact with our birthmom.

And all the tears came like a flood again as I typed that.

God is good. He is real. He is mighty. And He is listening to those prayers you think go unheard–the prayers you’ve prayed for what feels like forever. He is listening!

April daily goals:
– Read my chronological Bible reading plan
– #RunLiftPraise
– Eat more raw foods.
– Be active in my work day.
– (A new one this month!) Practice my four essentials that I uncovered during the Making Things Happen Conference: humility, integrity, physical exercise — running with the Lord, and living in awe of His essential grace.

Your turn! I’d love to hear: Do you have goals for April? I’ll pick one of you to send a special surprise box of goodies to from the Cultivate What Matters shop. I love sending real mail, and I love hearing your thoughts! Congrats to March’s winner, Leslie MP. Leslie, send me your info here and I’ll get your goodies to you!

P.S. What do you want to see more of here on the blog? Take our quick surveyand be entered to win a shopping spree from the Cultivate Shop. Everyone who takes the survey will get a discount code to the shop, too! : )

Thank you so much for all that you do!! Your desire to help others is such an encouragement to me. One of my biggest goals for April is praising Him among trials and in all circumstances. Not easy but I continue to be lead to work on this the most!

Hi, Lara! As always, I love reading your goal updates! So many exciting things and so wonderful to see God working through you and your family! 🙂 I especially loved your new goal of praying impossible prayers and being open to new possibilities. Thank you for the reminder that “God is good. He is real. He is mighty. And He is listening to those prayers you think go unheard–the prayers you’ve prayed for what feels like forever. He is listening!” I definitely needed that reminder today, as I navigate some disappointments and changes of plan that have broken my heart in many ways. I’ve been reminding myself of this quote today from a book I read last spring and loved: “The best stories are always still ahead of us. And the hard moments are preparing us for them. That’s the way the Kingdom of God works. But what He knows is best might not be immediately visible…” As I get ready to set my own April goals (which will involve completely removing one of the main goals I set for this year), I’m remembering that He truly does know best, and that He really is able to do the impossible…even in our greatest disappointments and redirections. <3

I love your daily goal of practicing your four essentials and how so much goodness flows out of those things! My April goals are revolving around my word of 2017 , which is GROW – grow in my daily spiritual habits, in existing and new friendships, and physically grow my porch container garden. I’m praying I would grow in creating consistent morning quiet times and that my container garden would flourish too and serve as a visible reminder of God’s goodness in the growth.

I’ve not actually finished reading this post, but just wanted to encourage you about the date nights. We decided a few months ago to have a frequent date night. We can’t afford to go out each week, but we take it in turns to cook for each other at home and switch off all devices and distractions. Sometimes we’re interrupted by the kids, but mostly not. We’ve found it hugely beneficial and have had some amazing conversations and special times together. We didn’t want to let cost or practicality stop us so we’re really intentional and committed to making it work for us at home each week. And we get to try some great new recipes together! X

I have lots of goals for March! 🙂 I’m the Matron of Honor in my sister’s wedding in July and thanks to my PowerSheets, I was reminded that it’s time to be planning the bachelorette party! I’ve already been able to have all the girls save the date and started researching local tea houses. 🙂 I’m much more excited about the party and planning than I was a week ago!

Last month, I had “make croissants from scratch” on my monthly goals, but it didn’t happen. However, I’m determined it will this month! It’s something I’ve always been curious about and I’ve been trying to be more present and explore my senses more–what better way than to make tasty, hands on French pastries?

I’ve also been struggling with following through on my goals to memorize scripture. So I’m trying to figure out a better way for me to do that.

We need to figure out our Easter plans, but now I’m inspired to maybe celebrate Passover as well, so trying to see if that can fit and I can do some research in the next few days.

Hello Taryn! Your goals sound great and so much fun! I’ve had ‘hide His Word in my heart’ on my tending list every month, and I’ve made some great progress. I use the Verses app to help me memorize them. You can add the verses that you want to learn, and there are several activities to help you. I also set a recurring reminder on my calendar to review them every evening. I hope that helps you with your progress!!

Oh my gosh, I just love the photos, but especially Josh! He’s just so adorable.

My April goals are generally smaller but I like that. I’m focusing on one step at a time, a cultivated calendar, and growing things with time and space. I’m updating my budget and tracking my spending much more carefully, and I’ve made goals this month to do something creative every day and also have Bible time in the morning.

What a refreshing post! I really appreciate your honesty with your goal setting process.
My husband and I actually accomplished quite a lot outside of our home in March. We only planned one project for outdoors, but it ended up becoming a diy-filled weekend every weekend. It was really encouraging as we have solely focused our attention indoors since buying our home 3 years ago. Our little boy would live outdoors if we’d let him, so the improvements have not only allowed us to love on our home more, but have given us more areas to retreat to as well. April is not going to allow us such freedom with our schedule, but I am choosing to see it as a month of reflection and celebration. My husband and I have a much-needed date day planned for this Saturday. We haven’t been out since our anniversary last October, & we are also celebrating 3 months since his ablation to correct his afib. So, Saturday is a very big date for us. 🙂 We also have our baby boy’s 2nd Easter to celebrate with him and our family, as well as my father in law’s birthday the same weekend. To wrap up the month, we are going to visit one of my best friends who lives across state lines now. A mini-vacation to see her new home and visit with her has been rescheduled so many times within the last year that we are VERY excited to finally be making the trip. Oh, and because babies have their own milestones they like to meet whenever, we are also transitioning our little boy into his toddler bed tomorrow. Any tips and prayers would be much appreciated!
Happy April to you and your beautiful family!

Finding Lara & Cultivate What Matters has been life changing. My favorite goal for this April is my monthly goal to “Tend to Mind, Body & Soul”. Then each weekly & daily goal supports my overall goal of tending!

Hi Lara, I’m new here and learning so much from you. At the end of 2016 I began reading your book.My word for the year is PURPOSE. I am learning so much from you as a mom, advocate for adoption, business owner and follower of Christ. Thank you for what you do. My “business” (which is really my ministry outside of my family) is teaching REFIT® classes. Have you heard of REFIT®Revolution before? It’s a life changing fitness experience ! I love how the Lord has used this in my life to make an impact in my community, grow me as a person and sharpen my gifts. You might check them out on YouTube for fun workouts and playlists you could do during the day to meet your fitness goal! Thanks again!

Thank you for being so honest and transparent! It’s refreshing and inspiring. I completely nicked the word CULTIVATE from you for 2017, and it is so adaptable i think it will fit my changing circumstances throughout the year. This month I want to cultivate discipline. I have some physical fitness goals I want to make progress on, and we just found out we have a move coming later in the year so I have to get cracking on loads of house projects to prepare for renting or selling our current house. My husband will be out of town until the move and I have two small kids, so discipline and organization (not always my strong suit) will be key to making the summer enjoyable, not stressful.

I love your posts so much! My April goals are to mostly start working on our land. We bought 2 acres about a year ago and we’re (hopefully) about to start building! I can’t wait to have a huge garden and room for our kids to roam. Also, Nutrition! I’ve been loving my workouts, but we ate what we eat….
So thankful for your blog! It’s one of my favorites.

My April goals:
-Go ice skating (I used to figure skate!)
-Host a casual women’s dinner for al the ladies in my life
-photograph our apartment (Its the first place we’re living after we’re married)
-Plan an adventure with the girl I mentor, in her neighborhood/part of town
-intentionally invest in a friendship

Weekly goals:
-Facebook free weekends
-Spend my unbooked Saturdays in a meaningful way
-skip a weigh in (trying to get a healthier body image)
-attend yoga
-Go for a run outside

I love this post! 🙂 I have several goals for this month but I’ll share 3. 1) Have a neighbor over for dinner. My husband and I want to start meeting our neighbors so we can start building community. We thought a great way to do this would be to start walking our dog more and meeting people we passed and invite someone over for dinner. 2) Do the Whole30 diet for the month of April. I’m actually on Day 10 of the diet now and am feeling great. I have more energy already and want to make this more of a lifestyle than just a month long commitment. 3) Read Made to Crave. It’s a book that teaches you how to rely on God and go to God instead of food. It’s been great so far and has helped tremendously with Whole30.

Planning our garden! I always had a garden with my mom growing up and although we’ve been in our home over 6 years , this will be our first garden! Looking forward to sharing the experience with my 2 year old. I think this is the goal I am most fired up about.

We’re also taking part in Hike it Baby’s Hike it 30 challenge so it’s our goal to walk/hike 30 miles in April.

I also want to continue working on rhythms/routines that help me create a life-giving home.

I love reading your blog, it’s always so uplifting and cheerful. I have a question- I’ve never really ‘celebrated’ Passover or studied on it; do you have any suggestions on a good read/book/Bible study/sermon series? I of course know about Passover from a “Sunday School” setting but would like to delve deeper!!

Weekly April Goals:
-Declutter one item a week
-30 minutes of good activity 5/week
-Write a letter to future husband (I’ve been keeping a journal to my future husband for almost a year now and I’ve loved it)
-Send a letter/card in the mail to a friend just because

Daily April Goals
-Read the Word
-Pray with intention and faith
-6-8 cups of water
-5 minuets of core work

I am SO looking forward to April as it’s a slower month for me. I see a lot of time for actually pursuing the things I enjoy and spending some good time with my family! Thanks for being a blessing Lara!

I haven’t filled out my April power sheets yet, I came over to your blog today to get a little inspiration. As I was reading one thing that hit me is that I don’t celebrate much anymore. I’ve been feeling a little hopeless the past couple months and I’m praying a little more celebration and appreciation (for holidays, imperfect progress, fridays, family, etc) will ignite a little spark in me so I can start taking those sometimes overwhelming steps in my life and business.

My April goals are all about growth! Growth with self care, growth on my blog, growth in my creative endeavor for the year – hand lettering. It may be snowing in Michigan, but my mind and heart are ready for fresh growth in Spring <3

Thanks as always, Lara, for being so open and inspiring about your goals and progress!

My goals for April include preordering the new Write the Word journal and 6 month Powersheets. Really! I’ve prayerfully considered and now budgeted for this decision and I’m so excited to move forward to see how the Write the Word journal can stir a renewed relationship with God. I’m also looking forward to diving in to Powersheets for the second half of this awesome year to further create intentional goals and see them through. Goals like – monthly date nights with my husband, technology-free evenings, and more reading for fun.

April in my field of work is exhausting, too fast, and the end of so many things!
My April is going to be focused on intentional connection, going to the events I want to see (choosing me over busy), and focusing in on my wellness by cultivating and continuing some of my daily habits.
One goal I didn’t expect but I’m loving so far is 30 minutes of face to face time with my SO, weekly. I have already been able to have this 2x this week–and it has been wonderful! I am already forecasting an improvement in our communication and satisfaction in our relationship.

I love this! Your progress encourages me. I’m simplifying in April for sure. My monthly goals are:
1) Building meaningful relationships with the ladies on my team.
2) Preparing for our leadership conference at the end of this month.

And weekly & daily goals got carried over from march for the most part.

I’m excited to be more focused in on the most important things instead of a bunch of little things.

Love all of your goals and keeping up-to-date on what’s going on in your life! 🙂 So encouraging!
These are my goals for the month:

MONTHLY GOALS:
-Come up with fun ideas for my first grade AWANA kids to keep them entertained/focused
-Attend a fun, local event
-Start a bank account to save money for a car
-Changing the story I tell about myself by changing the phrase “I’m not a consistent person” to “I’m growing in consistency”
-Make my spaces more beautiful

WEEKLY GOALS:
-Commit to church – every Sunday in April
-Tithe weekly to my church
-Budget for the week
-Meal plan for the week
-Pray for AWANA kids & send postcards

DAILY GOALS:
-ABIDE (re-prioritize abiding)
-Personal Development
-30 min exercise
-Wash my face (sometimes the only way I can get simple things like this done is to include it in my Powersheets 🙂 I’m growing in consistency!)

My April is stuffed full of travel, MRI for ongoing monitoring of my son’s brain tumor, my older son’s 16thbirthday, my husband’s birthday, my 19th wedding anniversary, and a family April birthday celebration at the end of the moth. My goal this month is to just get through all these good things and hopefully find a way to enjoy most of the days instead of wishing the stress away.

I have a bunch of goals for April, some mundane (like taxes!) and others are maintenance, little by little. My favorites revolve around the budget and relationships. A weekly goal is to stick to the limit set for the groceries. I haven’t done this in the past, but excited to work it this month. Another weekly goal is to check-in with a friend – by text, phone, card, etc. It’s a simple thing, but can easily get overlooked when most friends are over 12 hours away.

I purchased my first set of Powersheets this year after quitting my job of 7+ years to stay home with my little guys. It has brought so much clarity, focus and reflection to my days, weeks and months. I am so thankful for these as I knew this new chapter would bring lots of uncharted territory for me!
For April some of my biggest monthly goals are to make plans for our oldest son to go to preschool in the fall, finish 3 books (one on health, two spiritual), Design a few rooms for a house we are building, organize all the unneeded stuff for an upcoming garage sale!
Weekly goals include: meal prepping & planning, listening to a Podcast while folding laundry every Wednesday…
Daily goals: Quiet time, Intentionally reading the Bible, Quality time with the boys – not rushed time with them, eat a healthy lunch – not what the boys eat, read the Bible with my husband.

I love all of your goals, especially this one. “Practice my four essentials that I uncovered during the Making Things Happen Conference: humility, integrity, physical exercise — running with the Lord, and living in awe of His essential grace.”

Some of my April goals:
– to prepare well for a class that I’m staffing
– intentional quiet time
– drink more water!
– simplify and purge

My main goals are to stretch daily (physically, but mentally too I guess!), meal plan weekly (we’re trying not to eat out as much to divert that budget into travel), and show up & dream big when it comes to my hand-lettering business (I’ve been digging in to make it more of my business and less of a hobby).

About

Hi! I’m Lara. I’m a grateful wife (we have quite a story!), mom to three (one through the gift of adoption), and an unlikely gardener. I’m the creator of the PowerSheets grace-filled goal planner, founder of Southern Weddings magazine, and author of Make It Happen and Cultivate. I love living in Chapel Hill, NC. You can learn more about me here!